A related group of the American Political Science Association since 1975

Sunday, 30 August 2015

Kevin Hickson from the University of Liverpool presents an insightful argument for Labour's future against the backdrop of the current leadership election.The electoral strategy for the Labour Party over the next five years is incredibly
complex irrespective of who becomes Leader of the Party in September. The aim
of the following discussion is to set out in broad terms the strategy that the
successful candidate ought to follow.
One response within the Party to the
electoral defeat was to argue that the only way to win is by moving to the
right. This argument was made immediately after the election result with the
likes of Tony Blair, Alan Milburn, Peter Mandelson and David Miliband making the
argument for a revival of New Labour. This shouldn't come as a surprise since
these people and others had been critical of Ed Miliband for allegedly moving to
the left. Blair even predicted a Labour defeat earlier in the year as the
election would be framed as a traditional left versus right contest. Ed
Miliband's failure was apparently in allowing the party to be positioned on the
left against a populist right-wing Conservative government. Successive election
results had proven that a party of the 'left' could not win. Only New Labour
had a successful electoral strategy and any attempt to move away from it was
electoral suicide. The 'proof' of this hypothesis was the 2015 election result,
where not only had Miliband lost but had performed worse than five years
previously (in seats if not in vote share). The Progress wing of the party have
continued to push this political belief in the leadership contest.

However, such a view would be
mistaken since it suggests that the electoral context is essentially that which
it was in 1997. It isn't. The economy was at that time doing relatively well.
The Conservative government was tarnished with allegations of sleaze, divided
over European integration and appeared to have weak leadership. The election
was essentially a straight contest between Conservative and Labour, albeit with
support divided unequally across the country and with pockets of support for the
Liberal Democrats. Labour had been out of power for 18 years and there was an
overwhelming feeling that it was time for a change.

This contrasts starkly with 2015.
Labour had only been out of power for five years and the Conservatives have
successfully managed to pin the blame for the financial crash and subsequent
budget deficit on the previous Labour government. The Conservative party was
still seen as the party most trusted on the economy. Compared to the mid-1990s
the Conservative Party was more united. Moreover, the electoral geography was
much more complex than in 1997. Labour faced the challenge of the nationalists
in Scotland from the left, from UKIP in many of its urban heartlands and the
Conservatives in the English suburbs from the right. Although UKIP was seen as
more of a challenge to the Conservatives the reality was that it took more
Labour votes, while the Conservatives benefited from the demise of their former
Coalition partners. Under these very different circumstances a shift to the
right, rediscovering a Blairite formula, will not secure victory at the next
General Election.

One alternative has been to argue
that Labour should move to the left and the Labour left have managed to find a
candidate who can articulate that viewpoint persuasively in Jeremy Corbyn. It
is argued that there is considerable voter apathy that only a left-wing leader
could attract. It is also argued that there has to be a fundamental distinction
between Tory and Labour and that only by moving radically to the left can this
difference be demonstrated. Others, it has to be said, argue that what needs to
happen in the Labour Party is a fundamental debate over the aims and programme
for the party and that the leadership debate is an inadequate period of time in
which to do this. Even among those who support Jeremy Corbyn there is doubt
that he can win the next General Election, but he would at least be a useful
interim leader while the party goes back to basics they argue.

These view seems unsatisfactory. It
is somewhat reminiscent of a debate following the 1959 General Election defeat
where Dick Crossman, on the left of the party, argued that it was better to wait
in opposition for the inevitable crisis of capitalism at which point Labour
could regain power and introduce genuine socialism. Opposing this view, Tony
Crosland, argued that Labour needed to be more responsible seeking to get back
into office at the earliest opportunity in order to introduce measures that the
working-class voters needed and would not get under a Conservative
administration. Herein lies the tension between the ethic of ultimate ends and
the ethic of responsibility. Judging by some of the social media comment from
those supporting Corbyn any attempt to compromise with the electorate would be a
betrayal of socialist principles.

Having dismissed both the case for
moving to the right and for moving to the left it is now necessary to set out a
more viable electoral and political strategy for Labour. It would be easy for
those who want to see the party change radically from what it had become under
Ed Miliband to argue that anything else would be a defence of the same failed
strategy which resulted in a majority Conservative government in 2015.

It is, however, possible to argue
that Labour needs to change fundamentally without going sharply leftwards or
rightwards. It is the central argument of this pamphlet that Labour needs to be
more confident and more competent and this is what we seek to outline below.

Inevitably there will be much that
will change between now and the next election, which will likely be in 2020. It
would be unwise, therefore, for Labour to rush into adopting certain detailed
policy positions now that may well be outdated by 2020. It does, however, need
to set out a clear vision. The party needs both a message and a programme. The
message is a broad idea of the party's ideology and the ability to communicate
this articulately and in a way which is relevant to the electorate. It needs to
be able to say what difference a Labour government will make. The key
differences in outlook between the two parties. The different way that the
country would look after five years of majority Labour rule than how it would
look if there was another Tory government. This is inevitably an ideological
issue and Labour should not shy away from its ideological beliefs. Truly
successful governments are ones that transform the political landscape.
Arguably the last Labour government, despite its electoral successes and lasting
policy impact, failed to do this meaning that we still operate under a
neo-liberal paradigm more suitable to the Conservatives than a reforming Labour
government. Blair's insistence that 'what matters is what works' failed to
address the question of work in whose interests. Labour, irrespective of who
the next leader is, needs to set out more successfully than Miliband did the
essential features of the party's ideology.

At this early stage in the electoral
cycle it isn't necessary to make detailed policy proposals. There is plenty of
time for these to come as circumstances change as we get nearer to the next
General Election. All policy proposals need to fit into the broad ideological
narrative. It is, however, possible at this stage to set out the broad themes
of Labour's programme as we see it.

There are four broad areas:

·Rebalancing the economy - the need to reduce the budget deficit is
clear but this can be done through more progressive forms of taxation and growth
and not just through cuts to frontline public services. Moreover, there needs
to be a wider focus on the rebalancing of the economy both regionally and
sectorally. It was foolish of Labour to be put in a position whereby the
Conservative Chancellor could claim to be leading the way on the revival of the
economy in the north of England. Labour needs to develop modern regional and
industrial policies and champion a genuine living wage.

·Reintegrating public services - the Coalition reforms have led to
the fragmentation of public services. Labour should stand for the reintegration
of public services including health and social care, and the revival of the
comprehensive principle in education. In order to do this Labour needs to
empower local government and revive the idea of the mixed economy with greater
public control, if not ownership of public utilities and public transport.

·A
responsible welfare state - Labour needs to restore public trust in the welfare
state. This means tackling some issues which the left have traditionally found
difficult such as those who abuse the system. This does not mean, however,
demonising those who are vulnerable. Labour has to champion a more humane
welfare state than the one created by Iain Duncan Smith. But it also means
recognising work through a more contributory scheme above the national
minimum.

·Reviving a liberal national identity - again this is an issue
where the right has made much of the running in recent years but the left has a
story to tell. British values can reasonably be interpreted as more liberal
than the right would allow. The positives of immigration should be spelt out -
both culturally and economically - but the party also needs to recognise concern
over numbers and to say so isn't bigoted. Not only does this mean having
tighter controls, but more importantly tackling those unscrupulous employers who
seek to exploit immigrant labour. There is a case here for empowering trades
unions. Labour should also have pledged a referendum on EU membership before
the 2015 General Election but its failure to do so means that the Conservatives
and UKIP could portray Labour as being suspicious and contemptuous of the
electorate. Now that the referendum will take place Labour has been right to
say it will campaign separately from the Conservatives and to campaign for
continued membership.

So my criticism is not so much with
the broad ideological position of the last Labour leader but rather his
inability to articulate that position convincingly. It is worth spending some
time thinking about why he was unable to do this. Popular perceptions of Ed
Miliband, fuelled persistently by the right-wing press, tended to focus on the
nature of his election and on his 'other-worldliness'. The level of commentary
often concentrated on the trivial, such as his facial expression when eating a
bacon sandwich and the widely expressed opinion that somehow he had 'stabbed his
brother in the back'. More profoundly than this was the fact that he had failed
to secure a majority of MP's, many of whom supported his brother believing that
he would be the eventual successor. In-depth journalism since the election
defeat stressed internal divisions over message and strategy among the
close-knit group of advisors and frequent discontent in the Parliamentary Labour
Party among those who had not wanted Ed to be Leader in the first place. In
other words, Ed Miliband faced a number of constraints as a result of the nature
of his election as leader, ones which he failed to overcome. The message was
often confused and at times, even during the election campaign, Labour appeared
not to have simple answers to key questions on the economy, tax and
immigration. The party failed to rebut the Tory message that they were sorting
out 'Labour's mess' on the economy unsure whether to embrace austerity or growth
and settling on an uneasy compromise which the electorate could not be blamed
for not understanding.

So from the earliest stage the new
Labour leader, whoever he or she is, needs to begin to set out the message much
more robustly, coherently and consistently. Our electoral analysis shows that
targeting certain sections of the population based on social class, gender, age
or geography with certain policies, or 'retail offers', is inadequate. Labour
needs to appeal to a broad cross-section of the electorate by articulating a
clear set of values from which the policies derive.

What are these values?

The likely impact of five more years
of Conservative government will be a country which is more divided, unjust and
unequal. Studies have already shown that the number of people living in poverty
is increasing, the use of food banks looks set to rise even further and the gap
between rich and poor will grow. Many people will see the further erosion of
job security with the expansion of zero-hours contracts. The policy of allowing
social housing tenants to buy their homes will further erode the stock of social
homes while others will lose their homes through the 'Bedroom Tax'. Those on
social security payments will face further tightening of what many observers
feel to be an overly harsh system already. The realisation that there is a
growing social and economic divide in Britain will likely exacerbate social
tensions. The populist right will seek to exploit tensions over immigration
while the right-wing press will continue to blame immigrants and welfare
claimants for the country's ills.

In response Labour needs to set out
its traditional values of equality and social justice. It needs to stress the
virtue of politics as an activity underpinned by ethical values and using the
power of the state - nationally, regionally and locally - to achieve a more just
and equal society and a more balanced and stable economy. The party should be
internationalist, making the positive case for continued membership of the
European Union and international aid and development against the isolationism of
UKIP and an increasing number of Conservatives. But it should also be patriotic
in stressing that these values are British values, not the fear and hate peddled
by those on the right of the political spectrum.

A series of retail offers is
therefore inadequate and will fail to ignite the sense of hope and optimism
which is required to overcome Tory cynicism. But that does not mean that trends
in voting behaviour should be ignored. Labour failed in 2015 in particular key
demographics, particularly those over 65 and suburban voters who aren't directly
affected by some of the policies Labour offered such as the Living Wage or the
Bedroom Tax. We need to tailor the presentation of our core values to the
electoral realities. There are the working poor to whom Labour values directly
resonate but also those who are comfortable but face squeezed living standards
and worry about losing their jobs in the current economic climate and those
pensioners who fear having to face the costs of social care which in many areas
is inadequate.

In other words Labour talked about
the squeezed middle but formulated very few policies which directly affected
their concerns. So Labour needs to have a wider appeal without abandoning our
core values.

Finally, Labour needs to appear not
just confident but also competent. Labour failed to find a clear alternative
argument on the economy or to defend the economic legacy of the last Labour
government. The Conservatives ruthlessly and effectively drove home the message
that it was 'Labour's mess' that they were clearing up. This message is still
being made. There needs to be a simple and effective alternative narrative
about the need to rebalance the economy and to achieve a higher rate of economic
growth. Again, the best way of doing this is through a clear and confident
exposition of Labour's core values. Inequality, on the scale that exists today,
is not only socially unjust but also fosters economic instability with increased
financial risk in return for ever higher bonuses, short-term gain over long-term
investment and credit bubbles. Labour needs to make the argument that greater
equality leads to economic stability and refute the right-wing argument that a
trade off exists between equality and wealth creation.

One temptation at this time is to
argue that Labour should move to the right, seeking to recreate the winning
formula of the mid-1990s or that the party cannot win without moving ever closer
to the Conservatives. The alternative temptation is to argue that we lost on a
moderately social democratic platform as the differences between Labour and the
Tories were not clear enough. Therefore, the party should move to the left
believing that a coalition of support exists there which is big enough to win
the next General Election. The evidential basis for both positions is
weak.

The most likely electoral
winning strategy is to be coherent,
competent and confident. Coherence means having a clear
narrative on the economy, one able to overcome the likelihood of continuing
Conservative attacks on the 'failed' policy of the last Labour government. Competence involves having a leader
who is an effective communicator, who has a more popular touch and having a team
who are loyal and well briefed. Finally, and arguably most importantly, confidence means believing in the core
values of the party and being able to advocate them in a way which is relevant
to the electorate. It is often assumed, and certainly those who believe that
the party should go radically right or left would tend to reinforce this, that
there is a trade off between power and principle. That the party should either
abandon its core principles in order to get into office, or at least remain
silent about them in the hope that the electorate fails to spot them; or that
there should be no compromise and that it is more noble to stay in opposition
and remain true to core ideological principles. Both views are wrong. The
best, if not the only way for Labour to win the next election is to remain true
to its core values and have the confidence to articulate them effectively.
Labour can win in 2020, despite having an electoral mountain to climb, but it
can only do so if it makes the right choices now.

Kevin Hickson is the leader of Crewe Town Council and stood as Labour's PPC candidate in East Yorkshire. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, where he researches British politics and ideologies. He tweets at @Kevin_Hickson.

Sunday, 16 August 2015

Bill Jones discusses the impact of Jeremy Corbyn upon the Labour's future.

Unable to command the required 35 nominations, it was only the
kindness of several Labour MPs, (none of whom actually supported him), which enabled
little known leftie, Jeremy Corbyn to limp over the line and post his
leadership candidacy on June 15th. Since then developments have been
sensational, phenomenal: Corbyn leap-frogging into the lead over the three more
established candidates and addressing jubilant packed out rallies across the
country.This has delighted those of a
leftish temperament but plunged centre right supporters into deepest gloom.
What can we make of 'Corbynmania'?

It's not unusual for political parties when defeated to argue that if they had been more true to
their ideological roots, they would have fared better in the election and might
even have won. We saw this in 1979 when Thatcher's victory led to the election,
in a Bennite fever of enthusiasm, of Michael Foot as Labour leader; after 1997
we saw the Conservatives elect three rightwing leaders before finding David
Cameron in 2005. In both cases the swing back to core ideology resulted in
heavy defeats.

Would the election of Corbyn produce the same result? The case
is strong. After 1945 Labour was riven by left-right factional disputes.
Divided parties seldom prosper and the party was out of power for 13 years
before Harold Wilson's cautious prospectus won a tiny majority in 1964. During
the 1970s the left established the Benn - led Alternative Economic programme
which triumphed internally after 1979 but was totally rejected in Thatcher's
1983 landslide win. Labour lost heavily again in 1987 and yet again in 1992.

New Labour', the creation of Blair, Brown and Mandelson
marked a recognition that voters had turned away from Britain's road to socialism-
nationalisation- and did not favour unlimited welfare spending. The new
approach tacked strongly towards the market economy and ardently wooed
business, especially the City. Public schoolboy Blair was the perfect person to
reassure middle class voters that Labour was no longer beholden to its (in any
case shrinking) working class, unionised core support.

The result was Labour's biggest ever landslide victory, one
that seemed to vindicate the wholesale abandonment of all those 'Old Labour'
shibboleths. During Labour's subsequent 13 years in power, left-right
factionalism more or less ceased but defeat in 2010 initiated a rethink under
Ed Miliband which eschewed the 'split the difference' approach of New Labour
and shifted left on the assumption that voter opinion had done the same after
the 2009 economic meltdown; 2015 revealed this assumption to be false.

Corbyn's critics argue that after rejection of a leftish
(though none too clear) Miliband route in favour of a much more emphatic anti-austerity
leftwing one which embraces: much more borrowing, higher taxes, an investment
bank funded by 'a people's quantitative easing', the ending of university fees,
a substantial extension of public ownership,abolition of Trident and withdrawal from NATO, is tantamount in Alan
Johnson's words to 'madness'. The Economist's columnist, Bagehot (8/8/2015), is
not impressed by ideas 'which shore up the old status quo; of reinstatement over
reinvention... he has the attention of many, otherwise disengaged from
politics. These people surely deserve ideas responding to the convulsions
-digitisation, automation, globalisation- through which they are living.'

Corbynites, for their part, argue that the party has never
conftronted austerity policies head on and that the Blairite attempt to
position Labour in the centre ground via 'austerity- lite' policies had proven
fruitless: voters will always tend to prefer the 'real' i.e. Tory, thing. This
attitude sweeps away New Labouras a
busted flush; a new approach is needed more in line with fundamental Labour
values. Corbyn argues that UK
voters, like supporters of Syriza in Greece
and Podemos in Spain,
need to consider new approaches to end the unnecessary cutting of public
expenditure and the consequent immiseration of millions of working people.
Cutting expenditure will only shrink demand and lead to contraction and
widespread hardship. They claim a focus on expanding the economy is long
overdue and is supported by distinguished economists like Nobel laureates Paul
Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.

Given the dichotomy between Corbyn's position and that of
his critics what are Labour's prospects if Corbyn, as it currently seems likely(William
Hill makes him 1-5), actually wins? Clearly a return to schism in the party
would occur. A number of leading figures have already declared their
unwillingness to serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet and, given he could not even
raise 35 supporters among his fellow MPs, he would find himself in a very small
minority. It seems the (somewhat surprising) influx of new members since 2015
is mostly youthful, unable to recall either the wilderness years of the 1980s
or the electorally toxic nature of leftwing ideas. They have also warmed to
Corbyn's style and personality.

He is not exactly an exciting politician but his views are
in marked contrast to the crowded 'austerity lite' centre ground politicians,
including his rivals, Burnham, Cooper and Kendal. His demeanour too is
refreshingly different: transparently modest, low key, endlessly courteous,
refusing to engage in the acrimonious political culture displayed so
unpleasantly in weekly PMQs. In all these qualities Corbyn has something of
Tony Benn about him, a champion of the left who must be spinning in his grave
with envy that his moment has arrived just a year and a bit after his death.

But could he win? It depends on the short or the long term.
In the current climate everything we have learnt about UK voters tells
us Corbyn could not reverse the laws of political gravity. The Tories would be over
the moon with delight if he became leader; Cameron, Osborne, Gove and the like,
would hold up his ideas to ridicule and certain defeat in five years time;
Labour could even join the Lib Dems as an irrelevant minority. However, my
guess is that Corbyn's quiet, unflappable patience, would triumph over any
bullying Cameron style at PMQs- that would certainly be worth the watching.

Looking to the long term Corbyn might have a half decent
chance of converting Labour to his left-wing programme and then, just maybe a
majority of voters too. But that would require, as it did in Greece and Spain, an economiccrisis far more acute than anything we have
so far suffered. Older Labour voters might have to accept that they will see
out their years within a virtual one party Tory ruled state with just a chance
that Corbyn's heartening reinvigoration of youth and grassroots party members
will lead to possible victory around 2030.

Bill Jones has published widely on the subject of British Politics, and is the co-author (with Philip Norton) of Politics UK.

Sunday, 19 July 2015

As the referendum on exit from the EU approaches, there is
increasing controversy about who can speak as the representative voice of
British business.In his first address
to the CBI since taking up his post, business secretary Sajid Javid rebuked the
organisation for its enthusiasm for EU membership.Robin Oxley, the campaign director of
Business for Britain, the anti-EU lobby, has argued that groups like the CBI
decide what members should think rather than letting opinion filter up.

Table 1 provides some basic data on the main cross-sectoral
business organisations in the UK.

Organisation

Founded

Membership

Budget

Employees

CBI

1965 (from merger of three organisations)

Several thousand companies. 103 universities, 140 associations

£24.6m (2013)

240

Institute of Directors

1903

37,000 individuals

£30m

233

British Chambers of Commerce

1860

52 chambers of commerce

£4.6m

34

Federation of Small Businesses

1974

200,00

£28.5m

200

What is striking is that the Institute of Directors has a
larger budget and almost as many employees as the CBI, although probably a
higher proportion of the CBI’s staff are engaged on policy work.In the late 1960s, the CBI had around four
hundred staff.Its budget in the early
1970s was £2.4m[i]. According to the Bank of England inflation
calculator, this would be a broadly comparable to £22.3m today.The shrinkage in staff numbers may largely
represent support staff no longer needed given information technology.

The CBI has a rather complex structure, as it represents
trade associations as well as companies and public sector bodies, but it is
generally considered that big business is the most powerful influence on its
policies.

The Institute of Directors gained influence under the
Thatcher Government when the CBI was seen as too associated with no longer
fashionable corporatist policies.However, its membership has fallen from a peak
of 55,000 in 2001.

The British Chambers of Commerce is the oldest of the
organisations, but has the smallest staff and budget.It seeks to maximise its influence by
focusing on particular issues such as taxation.

The Blackpool-based Federation of Small Businesses has had a
static membership since 2006 and represents just 4 per cent of the UK’s 5
million small businesses.It has a
reputation for organising older businesses in established industries led by
mature white men, but 18 per cent of its member companies are owned by women
only.

The Europhile Sir Mike Rake, who was a member of the
advisory council of the pro-business lobby Business for New Europe, is being
replaced as CBI president by Paul Dreschler from a family company in
Liverpool.It is thought that he will be
better able to represent medium-sized businesses than the chairman of BT.In January, Mr Drechsler was one of 55
business leaders who signed a letter to the Times which called for a “new
relationship” with the EU, completion of the single market and for the “culture
of red tape” to be quashed.

New CBI
director-general Carolyn Fairbairn will need all the skills she acquired
working in the media during her career to help the CBI deal with the challenges
it will face in the run up to the EU referendum.

Wyn Grantis a political scientist at the University of Warwick, and has published widely on the subject of political studies. He also held the Presidency of the Political Studies Association.

Sunday, 12 July 2015

When a party is defeated it is naturally forced to consider why
it was rejected by the voters. This can lead to some serious soul searching
which can send the party down new paths in search for victory.

When a party leader steps down a party will obviously have
to decide who should replace them. In choosing a new leader (democratically or
otherwise) the party will have to decide whether to go with someone much like
the outgoing leader, or with a leader suggesting a new direction.

When a party loses both an election and a leader at the same
time it faces a time where new directions may truly be taken. This is the
situation that the Labour Party finds itself in after its damp squib of a
result in the May General Election and Ed Miliband’s subsequent departure as
party leader. The party is now in the midst of a leadership election campaign
which is also doubling up as a vehicle for some serious soul searching.

The four candidates on the leadership election ballot paper
show the full range of the party’s potential responses to defeat. Liz Kendall
and Jeremy Corbyn represent the two extremes of the party. Liz Kendall wasted
no time speaking out against what she saw as the failings of the Ed Miliband
leadership. Kendall represents what one might call the Neo-New Labour wing of
the party who views everything that happened after Tony Blair’s departure as a deviation
from election winning common centrist sense. Corbyn on the other hand is part
of the small and shrinking old style socialist left of the party. Corbyn and
many of his supporters would be most comfortable with the party’s position as
it was in the lead up to the 1983 election.

Whilst Kendall has significantly more support than Corbyn,
neither are likely to get anywhere near the leadership. That means that the
real contest is between Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Andy Burnham is
perceived as being the centre-left candidate in opposition to Kendall’s
centre-right stance. His line is based on prosperity for everybody (which all
candidates speak to so some degree), but without Kendall’s heavy focus on
wealth creation and supply side solutions. It is probably fair to say that
Burnham is the one to beat and seems to be the candidate who is placed closest
to the middle of Labour’s bell curve.

Yvette Cooper seems to be presenting herself as the
experienced ‘unity candidate’ – a leader who will not move to the left or the
right, but who will seek to unite the party behind a message of, well, unity
(details-to-follow-but-it-will-be-great). Labour will use a preferential voting
system to elect the next leader which means that MPs, party members and
affiliated union members will be asked to rank-order the candidates. This means
that the second preferences of Kendall and Corbyn will likely determine the
contest. The key question then is which of the two candidates can attract the
most second preferences. It is possible that Cooper’s unity message will work
to her advantage here.

However, in choosing any candidate for leader the party is
faced with some severe challenges. The first challenge is that the reasons for
Labour’s defeat are extremely complex. In other words, the party has to choose
one of several answers to a question that is not at all clear. The candidates are
obviously trying to push their particular version of what went wrong (which
leads to them being the solution). However, these candidate driven answers to Labour’s
problems are based on the personal ideological (in the broadest and, some might
argue, most diluted sense of that term) positions of the candidates, rather
than any firm evidence.

What is clear though is that Labour’s problems are severe.
They were crushed by the SNP in Scotland. SNP offered Scottish voters a product
which was both more left-wing and more specifically Scottish than Labour. Labour
lost in England to a Conservative Party which was both more right-wing and more
specifically English than Labour. And they lost support to UKIP which seemed to
speak to a large section of voters which have felt ignored by the main parties’
relentless focus on swing voters in marginal constituencies.

In other words,
Labour was too right-wing for Scotland, too left-wing in large parts of England
and too focussed on marginal seats in a political system which requires such
focus to win. Trying to be Scottish and left-wing enough in Scotland; English
and right-wing enough in large parts of England; and offer something to voters
in Labour heartlands that they could previously take for granted, whilst also
reaching out to swing voters is the challenge that faces the new leader. It
seems clear that neither Corbyn nor Kendal have the requisite breadth of appeal
necessary, and are thus out of the running. The open question then is which of
Burnham and Cooper can bring together a leadership winning coalition. Whether
either of them have the skill to face Labour’s serious challenges will only be
answered at the ballot box in 2020.

Sunday, 28 June 2015

Judi Atkins discusses the rhetoric of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the 2015 general election, within the context of the previous Coalition government.

How do
the former partners in a coalition government defend their record and, at the
same time, reassert their distinctive identities? This process begins months
before the general election, of course, but it intensifies during the short
campaign and requires considerable rhetorical skill – especially for the smaller
party, whose influence and achievements are often less visible to the public.

David
Cameron’s campaign rhetoric centred on the choice between competence and chaos.
Drawing on the Conservatives’ reputation for sound economic management, he
argued that his government’s policies were ‘getting the country on the right
track’. Cameron marshalled factual evidence to support this, claiming they had
created two million jobs and halved the deficit while maintaining investment in
the NHS. He also invoked the narrative of the ‘fiscal mess’ the government had
inherited and expressed his eagerness to ‘finish the job that we’ve all
started’. Here Cameron recalled the ‘we’re all in this together’ mantra, with
its echoes of the ‘Dunkirk spirit’, and so sought to unite the public behind
his party in a shared mission. He thus projected an image of governing
competence and strong leadership, while his acknowledgement that ‘it’s been a
very difficult time’ implies that the sacrifices made to secure the recovery
must not be allowed to go to waste.[1]

Alongside
this display of competence, Cameron fuelled fears of a minority Labour government
held to ransom by the SNP. Again drawing on the deficit narrative, he warned of
a ‘coalition of chaos’, with ‘the SNP acting as the chain to Labour’s wrecking
ball, running right through our economic recovery’. Indeed, he continued, ‘it
will be you who pays the price … with job losses, with massive tax rises, and
an economy back on the brink of bankruptcy’.[2]
The destruction metaphor heightened the emotional impact of Cameron’s words,
and so enhanced the persuasive power of his claim that only a Conservative government
would ensure the recovery continued. While the Party was criticised for a
lacklustre campaign, the fusion of its economic narrative with the ‘politics of
fear’ enabled it to confound expectations and win an overall majority.

The
Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, emphasised their centrist credentials and their achievements
in government. Thus, Nick Clegg expressed concern that the economic recovery
would be threatened either by the Conservatives’ ‘ideological
cuts’ or by Labour’s allegedly irresponsible borrowing, and argued that ‘we
need to remain anchored in the centre ground so that we can finish the job of
balancing the books, but do it fairly’.[3]
To demonstrate the efficacy of this approach, he reminded the electorate that
the Liberal Democrats had, for instance, raised the income tax threshold and
introduced the Pupil Premium, and so had helped to ‘create a stronger economy
and a fairer society’. Indeed, if given the opportunity to act as kingmaker in
a subsequent coalition, the Liberal Democrats would ‘add a heart to a
Conservative government and a brain to a Labour one’.[4]
Rather like the Wizard of Oz, Clegg’s party would give their potential partners
the qualities they needed to govern well, but which they currently lacked.

Although
the Liberal Democrats’ belief in fairness was at the forefront of their 2010
campaign, it was soon subordinated to the Conservatives’ deficit reduction
strategy. In 2015 the Party revived this commitment in a bid to re-establish
their distinctive identity, while appealing to their audience’s sense of
justice. To this end, they prioritised deficit reduction on the ground that it
is unfair to burden future generations with the debt, and sought to distance
themselves from the Conservatives’ approach. In particular, Clegg criticised
their proposed £12 billion reduction in welfare spending as ‘very unfair’,
asking Cameron: ‘What are you going to do? Who are you going to hurt? Who’s
going to bear the pain?’.[5]
However, this attack failed to convince due to the Liberal Democrat
leadership’s capitulation to the Conservatives’ austerity programme, while
Clegg’s efforts to present himself as a principled politician sat uneasily with
his U-turns on tuition fees and the ‘bedroom tax’. These apparent contradictions
gravely undermined the Liberal Democrats’ credibility and were surely a key
factor in their crushing defeat on 7 May.

Judi Atkins is Lecturer in Politics at Coventry University. She is author of Justifying
New Labour Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and co-editor of Rhetoric
in British Politics and Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

This post is reproduced from UK
Election Analysis 2015: Media, Voters and the Campaign, edited by Daniel
Jackson and Einar Thorsen and published by the Centre for Study of Journalism,
Culture and Community at Bournemouth University, in partnership with the
Political Studies Association.

Featuring 71 articles from 92
leading UK academics, this special publication captures the immediate thoughts,
reflections and early research insights on the 2015 UK General Election from
the cutting edge of media and politics research.

Published ten days after the
election, these contributions are short and accessible. Authors provide
authoritative analysis of the campaign, including research findings or new
theoretical insights; to bring readers original ways of understanding the
election. Contributions also bring a rich range of disciplinary influences,
from political science to fan studies, journalism studies to advertising. See
the Election Analysis
website for more details.

Monday, 25 May 2015

Kevin Hickson reflects on his experiences of contesting a safe Conservative seat as a Labour candidate.

On May 7th I contested the safe Conservative seat of East Yorkshire for the Labour Party.This was my first entry into national
politics having been a local councillor for two years previously.Every seat is different and as such care must
be taken in extrapolating wider lessons for the Labour Party as it begins the
task of examining what went wrong and where it goes from here.

The result in East Yorkshire
was mixed.The main aim, in which I was
successful, was in taking the Labour Party back into second place having
slipped below the Liberal Democrats five years previously.I also secured a modest increase in Labour's
vote share.As with all other candidates
in the constituency and across the country I took the opinion polls as being
more or less accurate.This, of course,
proved not to be the case.I expected
the Liberal Democrat vote to fall and most of that to come to me.I suspect it did, but what was less
predictable was the extent to which UKIP took votes from Labour - far more than
they did from the Conservatives.The
Tory vote held firm, in fact increased slightly giving the incumbent over 50%
of the vote.

Nationally, of course, Labour did badly.Hit hard by the swing to the Scottish
National Party in Scotland
and to UKIP, and to a lesser extent the Greens, in England Labour's electoral
strategy is now far more complicated than it was in the 1990s.

The Blairites were quick to criticise the leadership of Ed
Miliband in the days immediately after the election defeat.Never their choice for the leadership in 2010
they remained opposed to the direction in which he led the party and argued
that they had been proven right after the election defeat.Only by returning to the previously
successful New Labour formula could Labour recover power.Since then numerous leadership contenders
have appeared to denounce Ed Miliband's leadership and offer to move the party
back towards the 'aspirational' voters of Middle England they lost to the
Conservatives. In the immediate context of the 2015 election defeat this
argument appears enticing.However, to
move in that direction would be a mistake, for it assumes that the electoral
context is the same or similar to what it was in the run up to 1997 and
2001.It isn't.

The first reason for this is that there are clear left-wing
alternatives to Labour across the country.The reason why the SNP did so well is not because Labour was too
left-wing, but that it was radical enough.Equally the same argument can be made for how Labour should respond to
Plaid Cymru and the Greens.Moreover,
although this may appear counterintuitive, it is also the most sensible way to
respond to the challenge of UKIP.Although a proportion of UKIP voters are undoubtedly right-wing, voting
in the way they did because they switched from the BNP or the Tories, a large
proportion were also from the 'left behind', those who felt that the Labour
Party no longer spoke for them.

This is the dilemma that the next Labour leader faces.I believe that Ed Miliband had the right
instincts and that is why I voted for him to be Leader.However, he struggled to present a clear
alternative.Offering the voters only
slightly less austerity is not the way to enthuse them.Refusing to offer a referendum on continued
European Union membership was also a mistake for the pro-European argument must
be put and allowed Labour's political opponents to say that Labour was
contemptuous of the electorate.

So this isn't about moving left or right.To the disillusioned working-class voters of
towns such as Bridlington the terms left and right don't mean much anyway.But it does mean that Labour has to offer a
clear alternative perspective from the Conservatives offering a message of hope,
and must do so in a style and language which resonates with the wider public
that Labour now needs to appeal to.

Labour cannot win a majority next time unless it appeals to
the voters who went from Labour to the SNP.To become too English-centric at this time would be electorally
disastrous.To offer one message for Scotland and another for England (and perhaps another for Wales) would be
opportunistic.So the only viable
strategy for Labour across Britain, borne out by my experiences in East
Yorkshire, is to offer a bold message including endorsing an EU referendum, a
clear policy on immigration, a defence of public services and an alternative
approach to the economy.

Kevin Hickson is Senior Lecturer in British
Politics at the University of Liverpool and was Labour's Parliamentary candidate
for East Yorkshire.His opinions expressed in this article are
very much his own!

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